


a piece of your heart

by sultrygoblin



Category: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
Genre: AU, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Patient!Reader, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:35:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27131227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sultrygoblin/pseuds/sultrygoblin
Summary: one shot - show me a piece of you. show me a part of you. i'll be what you want. show me what you want
Relationships: Billy Bibbit/Reader
Kudos: 12





	a piece of your heart

**Author's Note:**

> i love brad dourif. i write the stutter.

You love him. There's nothing anyone can say to convince you otherwise. No matter what those horrible doctors think. You've only ever seen him through the windows, always separated by distance and a pane of glass, but you know he’s meant for you. You don’t love each other; you don’t know each other, but you’re meant to. You’re absolutely sure of it. If only because he seems to crave your smile as much as you do his. You have a crumpled piece of paper with chicken scratch writing to prove it.

 _I missed you_. Three words tucked tight against the spine on a dog eared page of some boring history book. How he had talked the orderly into giving it to you was a mystery but he had, it appeared along with your breakfast after a particularly nasty breakdown had left you stuck inside. And that afternoon you sat by the window, waiting and waiting till you could see him on the grass below. If only so he knew you hadn’t left him. He smiles at you, so bright that it lights up the overcast day far better than sunshine ever could. 

* * *

It’s easy. You don’t have to think. You don’t have to worry about saying the right thing. You just have to smile at him. At least you thought. Rumours run rampant in a place like this, every nurse and janitor treating every patient like they aren’t aware of what they’re whispering. Most of them are aware enough to hear it and understand. Normally no one cares, especially you. Except it’s about him. _Billy_. How many times have you whispered that name at night? When you think of him and all the things the two of you could be. That new man had held some sort of party and their nurse had caught him. With some woman. 

You feel sick. Barely making it to the bathroom before you’re retching in the toilet. You don’t really know him, the doctors are always reminding you. But it doesn’t stop the tears or the way it feels like your heart has been ripped into a thousand pieces. You flush, climbing to your feet, hoping you can pull it together. All you have to do is make it to the sink, wipe your face with cold water, and find any nurse to take you to any doctor. But it feels impossible. Your fists clench, nails digging into your palm, where you don’t manage to draw blood the vessels burst. Your body seems to work on instinct, throwing you back against the tiled wall over and over, your fists beating into your thighs creates a rhythm that’s far too comfortable in it’s pain. For almost ten minutes you manage, wonderful, beautiful pain. Your heart can’t hurt when everything else is too busy aching, your mind can’t focus on what his hands may have looked like against your skin when you’re imagining how beautiful the bruises will look blooming across your body.

“Oh sweetheart,” comes a voice from the doorway, the clatter of heels on the floor, “I thought you were doing better.”

You don’t answer, looking at the nurse with her perfect and white smile. Had she been like that? You want to hit yourself to banish the thought but you don’t want the drugs. Instead, you open your mouth, hoping that you can talk your way out of this but all that comes out is a broken sob. You wobble on your knees and she barely catches you, shouting for anyone. She can hold you up but your deadweight will be far too much work for you.

It’s Washington, one of the men from downstairs that meanders his way to this floor occasionally. If only to flirt with the nurses, the man who’d done the whispering of what shameful things had happened downstairs. You want to ask him questions but you doubt he has any answers. Even if he did, why would he tell you? He hoists you over his shoulder and down the end of the hall to the solitary rooms. He drops you on the bed with a bounce. You don’t fight, laying back and letting the sweet woman wrap leather tight around your wrists and ankles.

“You want to talk about it?” you respond by turning your eyes to the wall as if it were more interesting than any television show or movie you’ve seen, “The doctor will be in to see you soon.”

Not that you tell him. According to him you were supposed to be over this silly little crush. You can’t imagine what you’ll go through if anyone finds out that it was quite the opposite, that he was the source of your first breakdown in weeks. You go through practiced motions, the lies you’ve told since these started. You just felt overwhelmed and sad, you couldn’t handle it for some reason. He mentions going back to the old medications and you fight back in your own way. By the end he agrees that you just need a few days alone, away from the rest of the ward. It isn’t uncommon, especially from the younger women. Three days. You’ll get a few books and meals delivered to the room. More importantly, the barred window faces the alley where the deliveries are made and laundry is picked up. No Billy.

Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what your mother used to say, maybe it was your broken mind’s way of trying to help you. But in the silent dark all you could think of was him. How he had kissed someone else, touched someone else. How this woman must have made him feel good in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine, let alone replicate. _What would he want with a broken virgin like you?_ Words you had said far too many times to yourself and had always hoped he’d never make you feel. You wish you could talk to him, ask him why. But you know why. Because smiles shared through windows just aren’t enough.

The next day, you receive your meals and a few books. These one’s pilfered from the men’s floor because you’ve read everything three times over by now and begged for something new from the doctor. He hoped it would drag your mind somewhere else, keep everything at bay. You don’t dare to hope. It’s just two. One has the covered ripped off and you can’t tell what it is.

“That Billy kid sent this one up for you,” _A Room With A View._

All you want to do is send it back or rip it apart. Instead you ignore your tray of food to fall back on the bad, holding it in both your hands and staring at the cover. You’ve read it before, you don’t know many broken girls your age who haven’t. There’s a dog eared page and you shouldn’t flip to it, but you do, your body beginning to rock as your heart pounded with anxiety. _I’m sorry_. That same chicken scratch writing, pressed so far against the spine if you hadn’t bent the book in half you wouldn’t have been able to read it, you were barely able to find it. _Explain tonight_. Only then do you toss it across the room, as if it burned you. It might’ve been better if it had. Something to distract you from that looming word. Tonight.

You force enough food down your throat to be left alone, you fill the time with a wandering mind as your eyes pretend to scan the books pages. Pressing hard on a bruise when your mind begins to edge towards the worst, if only to drag you back to the present. You want to hate him, to turn him away but you can’t. Whether it’s because he’s sorry or because he’s him, when the staff begins to shut down for the night it’s far too much like Christmas Eve for your liking. You keep your knees pulled close to your chest, one arm around your shins, and the tip of your thumb between your teeth. You don’t have to sleep, you just don’t have to look jumpy when they do their last check of you, this was the closest you could manage.

And then silence. Pure silence. No ticking clock. There weren’t squeaky springs from tossing and turning ward mates, coughs and snores, just silence. Which made the stuttering footsteps stand out. Quiet pads and slipping feet. Until the quiet grind of metal on metal, you know it from late nights sneaking in, doing your best to make sure no one on the other side heard you unlocking the door. It hits the other side with a thud. There’s heavy breathing, rapid whispering and the door opens wide to the face of the new man you’d seen wandering around the yard. Eyebrows lifted to his hairline with a smile that reminded you of a circus clown.

“Well, you weren’t lying Billy boy,” he hisses with amusement, stepping to the side and handing the keys they must’ve used to _him_ behind the door, “Might have to keep her for myself.”

You press tight against the wall, “D-D-Don’t jo-jo-joke bout th-th-tha-that.”

You don’t hear anything else, taking in his voice for the first time. How he tumbles over his words and still makes it to the end in a way you never could. What point was there in finishing if no one was listening in the first place? It’s enough of a distraction that their guest has left and Billy has stepped into a room just like the last one he’d been in with a woman. The thought makes you wince, your heart aches, even more so now in his presence, but you’re as far into the corner as you can push yourself. He closes the door gently behind him, setting them on the chair next to the door.

“I-I-I-I-I wi-wi-wi-wi-wi-wish I-I-I-I had wai-wai-waited for you,” looking down as he tried to gather the words before meeting your eyes this close for the first time, “I-I-I-I-I’m so-so-so-so-sorry.”

You open your mouth, willing any of your infinite thoughts about him out of your mouth and none of them came. Your teeth clack together when you snap your mouth closed, pressing your hands into the cot and using the leverage to push forward and press your bare feet to the cold floor. You shrug, lacing your fingers together and dropping it hard into your lap, wincing thankfully when you catch the edge of a bruise. You shrug. _It’s not like we’re anything_. You don’t get it out. Billy shakes his head hard when you shrug again as dig your nails into the backs of your hands. The shadows cast harsh angles on his boyish face and there’s something terrifyingly beautiful about the way he surges towards you with what must be anger. Dropping hard to his knees in front of you, he shakes his head again.

“It’s not,” his words firm, it’s important for him to say, to know you hear without his own muddled brain getting in the way, “It’s not o-okay. I-I-I-I shou-shou-sh-” he bites his lip hard, “I-I-I h-h-h-hu-hu-hurt y-y-you.”

You don’t mean to cry, just little drops the leak from the edges of your eyes and down your cheeks, you want to scream and throw yourself back against the stone wall, “Why did you do that, Billy?”

He hates the first time he hears your voice it’s twinged with sadness, legs covered in bruises, arms and hands adorned with the red crescent shape of your nails and tears gently falling from your eyes. He doesn’t have an answer, aside from that she was there and pretty. That she seemed to want him. Except, she didn’t. Not really. And he had tried to find you behind his eyelids but it didn’t work. It hadn’t felt right. More than that, it had been wrong. Not in all the ways Nurse Ratched had said. He had worried far less about his mother finding out, it still made his heartbeat like crazy and words impossible. But it was nothing when he had heard Washington talking about you, what had happened, and he had just known, deep down inside. You knew what had happened, there’s was no guilt greater than being the one to do the heartbreaking. He knows what it feels like to hurt so bad inside you desperately need it on the outside. Anything to make it stop. Even for a second. 

He wants to try to push it on Mac, just like before, “No-no-no go-go-goo-good rea-reason,” but it’s his fault. He has to risk losing her now, “I-I-I j-j-j-j-just want-want-wanted t-t-t-t-to say so-sorry,” if he wants to keep her forever, “A-a-and h-h-hear y-y-you. J-J-J-Just o-o-once.”

Your hands shake when you pull them apart, yanking one of his own between them, and gripping it tight, “Was she prettier than me?” he smiles, shaking his head almost violently, “Would you take it back? If you could,” he bites his bottom lip, wide blue eyes fixed on you when he nods, “You have to make it up to me. And I don’t forgive you. I just,” you take a deep breath, in through the mouth, out through the nose, “I just don’t want to lose you before I really ever got to have you.”

His cheeks hurt from how far his smile stretched across his face, “I-I-I kn-ew y-y-y-you w-w-w-w-w-were sp-special,” his other hand reaching forward to wipe the few tears clinging to the curve of your jaw, “C-can’t stay long.”

You nod, watching him straighten himself just enough to reach your lips. He kisses you soft, gentle, like you have never dared imagined being kissed. He doesn’t care your face is sticky with tears, holding your cheek in the palm of his hand. He doesn’t care your break down has left you looking more than a small mess, hair still unbrushed and painted with splotchy deep browns that will explore all matter of shades as they fade. It doesn’t matter to him. Your grip on his hand loosens, until he can slip it from between your hands to hold the curve of your neck. What matters now is your fingers in his hair, exploring the strands slowly, your fingers curling in the front of his shirt. That perfect bottom lip between his teeth as he tugs ever so gently. This isn’t like Candy. It’s real. It matters. It’s that bit of happiness he’d been too scared to take. Too worried about what happened after. He doesn’t have to think about that because you want an after. Something more than shared looks and a stolen moment. You have your own demons to match his, maybe it wasn’t about being ready for the entire world, just being ready for the right person.

“I want you to touch me, Billy,” your lips still pressed to his, brushing with every word, voice riddled with desperation, “I want to erase her. I want-”

He hushes you with his lips instead of his words, he’s forgotten everything about that night except the guilt, that will never fade but the memory will truly be forgotten once tonight is over. When he’s washed her cheap perfume from his skin with you the natural sweetness of you, no waxy lips or lacquered nails. You’re perfect for him, beautiful in all your imperfections. It doesn’t take thought to keep his hands steady, to take a slow seat next to you, fingers trailing gently up your thigh as he pushed you towards the bed, easing himself between your legs. You tremble against him, sighing against his lips, there’s no hesitance. You’ve lost yourself in his taste, in the heat that rolls off of him, the sensation of deep comfort you’ve never experienced. The loneliness when he leaves will be unbearable. You vow to commit every moment to memory until the next one stolen.

“A-A-are yo-you sure?” his voice hushed, grasping the hem of your shift in his long fingers.

You kiss him this time, you have no trust in your ability to speak. It lifts higher and higher, over the bare curve of your backside until you’re forced to part so he can toss it to the side. He groans at the sight of you exposed, every inch of you is privy to his eyes. He can’t ignore the scars, just as he’d never ask you to ignore his own. It’s the bruises that make his stomach drop and that feeling of guilt roots itself even deeper. His fingers run gently along the bloomed scarlet, you shiver at the barely there touch and it fills him with an odd sense of pride. He hopes to replace all the pain he’d given you with nothing but love and everything that means. You reach to meet his lips again and he slips away, a quiet whine vibrates from your throat, widening that boyish grin. He strips himself of his top and bottom layers, exposing himself to you with his own uncomfortableness. He’s thin, Candy had giggled, your fingers trace his jutting collar bone, the harsh curves of each boney rib. Legs hook over his thin hips, sharp angles fitting between the rivers of unblemished skin along your thighs, but your eyes never stray from their appreciation of him until you’ve met his gaze, twinkling like waves in the moonlight.

“You’re beautiful,” not even a whisper, barely a breath.

He makes to shake his head, mouth opening and closing as he fumbled for any words his mind could conjure into existence. You press upwards, taking his lip gently between your teeth just as he had done to you, it seemed enough to silence any doubt, shifting to his lips as he pressed against you. You’ve never felt anything so hard and yet so smooth as he slides against you, nudging against that button you had become terrified to explore yourself. He’s warm around you, it’s better than you imagined, dreamed. 

“Are you sure?” his voice repeats, clear even as he pants against your lips.

You run your hands along his back, nodding gently. He slid back and forth becomes more determined, slipping easier with each stroke. Your body feels on fire but you shiver, his caring touches making your skin rise, your body arches without your permission. You want to cry out but you can’t, biting your own lip and clenching your eyes shut, turning it into a muffled _hmph_. He laughs, sweeping kisses along one cheek, over the bridge of your nose, to the other. His tip prods against your opening, where only a few doctors and once or twice your experimental fingers had tread. You always thought you would tense up, terrified of the pain that every woman warned you about, but it’s nothing like that. You feel desperate for him, finally making him wholly a part of you. Something beyond a window pane. You can’t honestly remember wanting anything in your life more.

Billy opens his mouth, no doubt in a kind gesture of making _completely_ sure you’re ready but he doesn’t know, he doesn’t realize. You’ve spent your life waiting for this moment, waiting not for someone _like_ him but simply for him. You cant your hips, it’s the only thing that makes sense to do, pressing the head of his cock into. He groans, low and quiet against your ear as he inches forward. There isn’t the pain that you have been tormented, it’s an uncomfortable sensation, as if he is just a little bit too big for you, stretching parts of you in a way you didn’t know they could. He gasps, pressing messy kisses to the line of your jaw, and adjusting his body. He brushes something inside of you and you have to bite his shoulder suddenly to keep from screaming out.

He doesn’t ask if you’re alright, he knows now there’s nowhere else you want to be. His thrust are short, gentle, trying to take care of you. Already you’re so much different, far more than him being your first. You fit against him, looking at him as if he’d hung the moon, it’s more than wanting him back. If he were a brave man he’d ask if you love him, if he were a different man he’d tell you himself. Slender hands hold your cheeks, keeping his eyes on your, the very edge of his cross scrapping back and forth along your skin. He watches your eyes begin to roll back, your taut legs trembling against him, your walls begin to tighten around him. This is different, it feels right, he presses harder, desperate to drag whatever this sensation was from you.

Your volume starts to rise and he slaps his hand across your mouth, smile pressing to your check. You groan, thankful for the makeshift gag, able to lose yourself in the tension in your belly that tightens until it aches. You’re desperate for something with no idea what it might be. Just that maybe if you scream, if your grind down every muscle, if Billy doesn’t stop, _something_ might happen.

And then it does. Exploding across your eyes, your body, you tremble. It’s sharp shoot upward, every part of you twitches, breathing stops, even your heart seems to slow. And then you fall, crashing back to Earth and shattering into a million beautiful pieces, that he puts back together piece by piece. His teeth dig into his lip, pressing his face between the mattress and your ear, his groans muffle the blood rushing in your ears. Each erratic snap of his his hips pushes the feeling’s length, till you’re sure you can’t stand it. Soon Billy’s hand won’t be enough and you’re almost worried when a sticky warmth explode between your thighs and he gasps, grinding against you, finding the end of own experience with the sensation.

It feels like how his first time should have felt. With someone who cared about him. Who wanted only him. 

“I-I l-l-l-love you,” he whispers quietly, his hand shifting to wipe the tears that had at some point began to fall from your eyes, “I’m sorry.”

Billy is glad he could give that to you. You deserved something good.


End file.
